Patty's Project Ideas

Monday, April 30, 2012

Working at a preschool, I see some of the cutest drawings. Kids have a real imagination! This is definitely not a preschool project but may be fun for more of the middle schoolers. One of the little girls in our class brought in a drawing she had made at home and wanted us to hang it up. When I asked if it was for me, she immediately said no it was for Miss Keri! She is such a stinker! LOL

Here is her original drawing

Well I thought it would be such a cute idea to take it and make it into a stuffed version of her drawing. Making it come to life in a way.

Finished piece

I had to take some liberties with color since her drawing was in black and white. I used red felt for the body, purple yarn for the hair, black fabric fused on for the eyeballs. I hand sewed the eyes in place and embroidered the eyelashes and the mouth. The final touch was to add the white parts of the eyes using white fabric paint. I stuffed it and sewed it shut.

Side by side comparison

I have to say that this was a very fun project to do and now I have to go dig up some of my daughters drawings so that I can convert them to fabric!

First thing you want to do is create a template. If you are doing this for a class, you must do the template. It's easier to draw one half and cut it out so that it is the same on each side! Fold your sheet of white paper in half and sketch one side of the butterfly. Cut along the lines and open up.

Placing your template on top of the black paper, trace the butterfly in pencil or white or yellow colored pencil so it is easier to see the lines. If you are really ambitious, you can do the inside of the wings and cut out so that it can be traced also. Then each child will have the same butterfly pattern. Cut out the butterfly.

Draw in the pattern of the butterfly wing using a pencil. Do not go all the way to the edge as we have to add white in along the borders.

We will paint in the same style as stage three but since it is larger, we can use a small brush. If you want to use your fingers, have fun! Some kids hate getting paint on their hands and that's fine. If you don't have brushes, get creative and use q-tips or whatever else you have lying around. Load the brush with some yellow and some red. Paint onto the black and blend together on the paper. This will give you a varied orange look and make it more organic. (NOTE: IF YOU WANT BRIGHT ORANGE SPOTS, PAINT WHITE IN ALL THE SHAPES FIRST. LET DRY AND THEN PAINT THE YELLOW AND ORANGE ON TOP)

Once the orange parts are done, squirt a little white onto your tray. Dip a small finger in and dab white dots around the outside edge of the butterfly wings. Again, each butterfly is different so encourage the creativity. Enjoy!

First step is to draw a simple cocoon shape for your template. Bearing in mind preschoolers will be cutting this, I made it very simple. You will need to trace two of the light green and one of the black.

On the black sheet, you will want to draw shapes that look like the orange in a monarch butterfly's wings. If pencil doesn't show up on the black, then use a white or yellow colored pencil.

Now the fun part! Squirt a little bit of yellow and red onto a small plate. I used the bottom of a sour cream container. DON'T MIX!

Dip your finger into a little red and a little yellow and paint on the black paper inside your shapes. Mix the two colors as you go. Fill in each section. Don't worrk if the color is not consistent. That's what makes the piece interesting and individual like each butterfly.

Now add a little bit of white onto the tray. Dipping in a pinky finger for our size and a preschooler can use any finger, make little white dots around the bottom of the wing. Put to the side to dry. Acrylic paints dry pretty quickly unless the paint was applied very thickly!

Once the wing is dry, place a green cocoon, then the wing and finally the other green cocoon on top. Make sure they are all lined up (as close as you can if the scissors skills are not the best!) Punch a whole through all three pieces.

Place the brad through the three pieces and bend back to secure.

Your final piece should look like this. You can keep it closed and slowly open it as the butterfly starts to emerge.

Fold the paper in half and then freehand draw a large leaf onto the paper. You will need a leaf for this part and for part two so I will cut both at the same time and save time and energy.

Cut out two leaves and place one off to the side. I folded the leaf in half lengthwise to make it a little more realistic.

Take your green marker and draw the leaf veins all over the leaf.

The final step is to take small squares of tissue paper and crumble them up into little balls. I used cheap, thin paper but harder to glue. Tissue paper is much easier to use and glue. Take the little balls "eggs" and glue them onto the leaf.

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Part two of our adventure is assembling the project once all the painted papers are dry. For our preschoolers, we will have to cut out the circles for them and the planet part. But older children can do this on their own.

Step one is to cut out the black paper. I suggest cutting two. Then one can be used for your project and the other as a template for all the others. Save the cut outs to be used for planets.

Take your planet cut outs and place them over areas of the paper to figure out how much to cut for the planet you are working on. You want to cut them much bigger so when you are placing your black paper over the top, it will create your planet.

On a sheet of white paper (mine is green because I used all my white playing with the paint!) and trace the planet locations on it. The painted planet paper cut outs need to cover the lines. Glue them in place. Use my example of color combinations to help create yours.

The final step is to glue the black sheet over the planets. I cut a ring out of more painted paper to finish off saturn. I thought it would look better. Our kids can't spell yet so we may have stickers with the planets names. They can then label each planet with a sticker. Older kids may write it themselves with white colored pencil.

Using your colored pencil, draw various sized circles on the paper to create the different planets. I found some pictures online of how they look size wise next to each other for a frame of reference.

On your piece of mylar (or you can use plexiglass, or your table) squirt on green and blue paints. I had two different blues so decided to try both.

Smear the paint together in a back and forth motion. This will create waves or lines. Kids will not do it that way but we can always hope right! Not as important on the blue and green planets. You can use your hands to paint - as most kids love to do, or use a brush for those who hate getting paint on their hands!

Now place a sheet of white paper over the top of the paint to make a print. (This is a very fundamental way to screen print! And fun too!)

Slowly peel back the paper from the mylar.

You will have a print of what was on the mylar. Hang the paper to dry.

Do the exact same thing with the red, yellow and brown. Brown is for mercury and brown and yellow work for Saturn with a little red thrown in.

Make a print and hang up to dry.

Now you will have extra paint on the mylar, you can draw patterns in the paint, stamp it, use different materials to create all kinds of textures and pull more prints. We will do this for the kids and after they are dry we can use them in another project. Or you can cut up the colored paper into squares and create mosaic pictures using the different colors! Endless possibilities!

Welcome

This blog was created to upload project ideas for kids. I work at a preschool and have had the honor of creating art projects to compliment the theme of the week as dictated by the teacher. Some people have asked for the patterns and pictures so they can use it for their kids and classes. I have also been a girl scout leader and had fun teaching the girls a thing or two. I will probably intersperse it with other projects I have done with my kids. So I hope you enjoy and feel free to use my ideas but please give me credit! Thanks

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I am a wife and a mother of two kids who keep me very busy. I work part time at a park district preschool. In my very limited free time, I work on art incorporating fabric, paints and whatever else I can find.